***Updated***
Wow, I'm updating already and this post is not even two hours old!! I forgot to mention a couple of other things below that we are doing
-I cut out a picture of my parents faces and laminated it for Katelyn's calendar. I have a huge calendar used for preschool circle time(more on this in later post) that I do with Katelyn frequently throughout the week so she can learn days of the week, counting, and all sorts of other things. Anyway, I put the pictre of my parents on the day they are arriving in a few weeks so Katelyn can have a visual count down of how many days it will be before they get here. We also have a special calendar cut out for Christmas day that she can cound down to as well.
-Our church is going Christmas Caroling on the 14th. I'm curious to see how that turn out! We are planning on taking the girls in our double stroller and just REALLY bundleing them up.
-As I mentioned before, I would like to make a "birthday cake" for Jesus this year.
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It's my favorite time of the year!! I don't know about you but although the Christmas season is full of fun it's also one of the busiest. I've been reading a lot of blogs that are stressing "simplifying Christmas" and cutting out a lot of things so you and your family aren't running around like crazy during the Christmas season. While I see the merit of this I also tend to see things a little differently too. When Christmas times comes I want to do do do as much that is Christmas-y as possible. I want to bake with Katelyn, I want to bake for other people, I want to make Christmas crafts with the girls, decorate, start a new family traditions, carol, go to parties, have parties, listen to Christmas music, shop, go to our Christmas eve service, spoil my kids rotten with a ton of loot on Christmas morning and take part in any other event that would involve Christmas at all. I want to do this because you only get one month each year to do any of that. Because I'm all about making memories. While I understand about not over doing it and being more stressed than cheery on Christmas,I think you can have a balance between focusing on Christmas related things and letting "other" things go for the month of December. Many people choose to only focus on Jesus during Christmas and buy only one or two gifts for their kids. That is fine. I want my children to learn to appreciate what they have and not only focus on getting presents. But I think we also have to remember that children are children. They are going to focus on the presents no matter how many times you read about Jesus' birth or how many presents you get them, be it two or twenty. I do think that December is the month you should " go all out" as much as possible. Spend as much time with friends and family and take your kids to see lights, Santa, a nativity play or whatever else floats your boat. Unless it's really what you want to do I don't think you should just narrow it down to one or two events all in the name of simplifying so you can dust, clean your windows, and follow some other rigid schedule you had set before December. I think you can focus on Jesus during Christmas and have fun "going all out" at Christmas time. Does this make sense? Anyway, enough pontificating. I had several little things to write about so I figured I'd just do a Christmas dribs and drabs post-
-I love getting and giving Christmas cards. It's a thing with me. I anxiously check the mail every day to see who sent me Christmas cards. Then I happily hang them up. As of today I've only received 3. Are people sending them out late this year?? I myself am not completely done yet either. I've been sending out 5 or 6 each day and trying to pace myself. If you send me a card, you'll get one from me. If I don't get a card from you then I'll remember it for next year and your name is crossed off my list! (muah, ha ha ha) :o) It's a cut throat event with me, this sending Christmas cards thing. (Just kidding folks, just kidding! Or am I...?)
-It took us three days to finish decorating our tree but it's as done as it's going to be this year. We have yet to put out our lights so I hope Mike gets on top of that soon. Madelyn loves playing " Pull The Ornaments Off the Tree , Put Them In My Mouth and Show Mom" so I have to keep an eye on her. Since Madelyn keeps taking ornaments off the tree Katelyn thinks it's a free for all as well. The tree gets redecorated several times a day. They are both obsessed with the Dora decorations we have so I am constantly finding them all over the place and putting them back on the tree.
- I love Christmas music. I've recently become enamored with " I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". It's stuck in my head and Katelyn also walks around singing it.
-This Friday and Saturday we have two work Christmas parties that I am excited about. The first one is Mike's Lonza party. It's starts at 7:00 on Friday night and goes until 1:00 am. It's at the New England Center in Durham, NH. I have no idea what the NEC is or what we are going to do there. All I know is that it's semi formal and I have to go shopping for a new dress for it. Which, at this point in my weight, I am not very excited about. Mike was then invited by his old boss to attend his old job's Christmas party which is at the Boston Museum Of Science. We can take our kids and everything there is free for us. We signed up to see The Butterfly Garden, The 3D show about Dinosaurs and a "Fly Me To The Moon" show in their planetarium. It's an all day thing and they serve breakfast, lunch and dessert. I am soo excited about that. I think the girls will love it. The girls will be sleeping over at my inlaws Friday night since it's going to be a late nigh for us. We're going to stay in a hotel and then come back and pick up the girls Saturday morning and head straight to Boston with them. Sounds stressful but fun at the same time.
-Mike's current job had a Christmas party of sorts for the children of the employees of Lonza this past weekend. They rented out a whole theater so the children could watch "Bolt". Only one parent was allowed to go with the children so Mike got to take Katelyn to see it. It was her first time ever in a movie theater. They also offered a light lunch to everyone while they were there. I thought that was a cute idea. I just wished I had gotten the chance to go to. She did pretty good although Mike said she did ask to go home halfway through the movie and then needed to sit in his lap for most of it. I figured she would get pretty antsy since sitting for a long time is not her thing. She is a half hour show kind a girl. And even when she is watching Dora or something else she's up and dancing and running around for most of it. Mike bought her a stuffed " Bolt" and "Rhino" before the show so she would know what he looked like.
-I also forgot to mention last week(horrid mother that I am!) that Madelyn had her last bottle on Tuesday, Dec 2. Sniff!! She now has one of those Nuby cups at night before she goes to bed. She did fine with the transition. As long as she gets something she's fine with it.
- My Ladies Christmas Tea this past weekend was a blast and went great. We had a great turn out and several ladies brought guests. We had more food than we knew what to do with. We played Christmas pictionary and each had a part to sing and act out in our "12 Days Of Christmas" game. We revealed who our Secret Sisters were and exchanged gifts. There was a lot of laughing and fellowshipping. We did a couple of other activities to round out our night. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Well, I was going to post several more pictures but this post has already gotten way too long. So, I guess my next post will be more pictures from our Christmas tree trimming and some from our ladies tea.